Editor,
Unemployment has been one of the major issues that many qualified candidates have been facing in Meghalaya for a very long time and it is still a major problem till date. Due to unemployment many people are forced to take up the alternate route to be able to feed themselves and their families which leads to people getting involved with illegal activities. Can you blame them?
Already most of the youth are unemployed but if suspicious cases arise during the recruitment process, will they not lose their trust in the system? Eligible and deserving candidates will be left jobless and only those who are fortunate enough to have a political backup will be employed.
Recently, on the 26th November 2022 there was a recruitment examination that was conducted by the office of the Commissionerate of Food Safety, Meghalaya in which hundreds of candidates applied for the posts that were advertised by the said office i.e., Chemist and Food Safety Officer in which the salary greatly differs from one another.
At first glance it seems fair that the office is conducting a written test for both the posts. The syllabus for the exam printed on the admission card includes General English, Aptitude, General Awareness and matters relating to Food Safety Standard and Acts 2006 published by the Food Safety Standards Authority of India. Whereas the question papers include General Knowledge and Aptitude (FSS questions and some general knowledge were given), Mathematics, Science – physics, chemistry, biology, hence no Aptitude questions were included as well as General English. Only two-three questions of General Awareness were included and the Mathematics and Science section were completely out of the syllabus.
The FSSAI (Food Safety Standards Authority of India) has conducted the same type of exams i.e., the CFSO (Central Food Safety Officer) exams on the 31st March, 2022 and MPSC has also conducted the same exam of FSO (Food Safety Officer) on the 26th November, 2022 in which the questions were relevant and were set according to the syllabus provided.
With regards to the exam of the FSO (Food Safety Officer) conducted by the office of the Commissionerate of Food Safety, Meghalaya, the question set was irrelevant and completely different from the syllabus that they have provided. Advance questions were being set which include Advance Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry which even an honours student would have a hard time to solve.
Questions relating to the Food Safety Act should have been covered in a separate section and not in the General Knowledge or Aptitude section as mentioned in the syllabus. Therefore, more relevant questions should have been covered in the question paper as per the post applied for and as per the syllabus given by the concerned authority.
As someone on that day might say that as most candidates are from the Science background, the concerns should be understood that the Science stream is divided into different sections including life sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences and so on. So, it would be impossible to say that everyone should master all the fields. Questions should be generalised as most candidates are from different fields of the Science stream, hence questions should not be constricted to a particular field or subject matter.
As per the question paper given, the questions carry one mark each and there was also a negative marking of one mark for each wrong answer which is very rare in a competitive examination. Usually, in competitive examinations conducted by any recruitment centre, the negative marking for each wrong answer is 1/4th of the marks in the questions.
What is doubtful about the exams was that both the posts of Chemist and Food Safety Officer were conducted at the same time and the same question paper was given to the candidates. Candidates who apply for one post and candidates applying for both the posts have to attempt the same questions. This raises questions as to how fair and square it is considering that the two posts are completely different from one another and on what basis the selection process will be carried out since there is no difference in the question paper.
Separate exams should have been held for each post and irrelevant questions or topics not mentioned in the syllabus should have been limited to a lesser number. Moreover, apart from the roll number, the name of the candidates has to be filled in the OMR sheet which has raised many eyebrows.
Some of the candidates have come from far-flung areas to appear for the exams with high hopes. Imagine their frustrations with how the exams were conducted. Majority of the candidates demand the concerned authority to reschedule the exams and relevant questions should be given as per the syllabus provided.
